Monthly Archives: September 2013

Resonance

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I agree with my colleague David Gardner that adventure games aren’t dead. They just seemed to be standing still though. It is true that there were many excellent adventure games (with a large production value) in the last couple of years, but few tried to move the genre forward.

And then there was Resonance! It’s very traditional and really progressive at the same time. So if you enjoy the ‘old school’ adventure look, an excellent near-future Sci-Fi story or if you simply would like to experience the next evolutionary step in the adventure genre then you shouldn’t hesitate and get a copy of the game.

What impressed me most about Resonance is that developer xiigames succeeded to add something new and exciting to the proven adventure game formula. One of my favorite new features is the ‘short term memory’ which allows you to drag objects or characters into it, so that they can then be used as topics in conversations with other characters. It makes so much sense and feels very natural. In fact while playing the game I was wondering how I played other adventures without this feature.

In addition to moving the genre forward Resonance also has a fantastic story with multiple story twists. There are few games that surprise me in terms of plot development, but Resonance certainly managed to do just that.

I really have nothing bad to say about the game and I’m not alone. Rock Paper Shotgun, Kotaku and many other high profile game review sites praise the game.

Stating the obvious: The adventure of programming

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It just occurred to me the other day (and I’m not sure why it took me so long to make that connection) that enjoy programming and adventure games because of similar reasons.

Adventure games are all about puzzles and the joy of solving them. Well so is programming. You are constantly confronted with questions like ‘Why does the system behave like that?’, ‘How can we get around these limitations and make feature X work?’

The other day I was trying to track down a weird issue were the parts of the screen would sometimes get corrupted. Initially I thought it had to do with how I was managing graphics memory, so I was poking around in that code but couldn’t find the problem. The issue turned out to be in a completely different system and I (eventually) identified the source by observation of the behavior of the affected code. I approached the problem just like a puzzle in an adventure game (I even tried to look up the solution on the internet) and felt quite good after I finally solved the problem.

But there are more similarities than solving puzzles. The taxonomy of adventures in my simple world view is defined by whether the puzzles follow designer logic or observational logic. For the former category you basically have to figure out what the designer was thinking when he was creating the puzzle. Very often there is only one solution and it might not be the most obvious/logical one (usually the solution is very creative and funny though). The latter category describes games were the puzzles can be solved by observing the environment and making logical conclusions. I’m not going to name examples here, but I’m sure you know what I’m talking about.

The same taxonomy can be applied to programming too! For example if you have to work with a closed-source API you’ll have to start thinking like the architect of the system in order to be able to use it properly. Very often there is only one right way of interfacing with the API and other approaches will introduce obvious (and worse than that non obvious) bugs. Unfortunately there barely is a funny pay-off though. Observational logic is also important, because debugging pretty much relies on reasoning based on the changing state of systems.

Not only that but sometimes you even have to do pixel hunting when trying to find and fix syntax problems. Also did you ever notice that branching is very similar to dialog trees… 😀

Maybe it’s far fetched, but it would explain why I like adventure games and coding a lot. 🙂

realMyst

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I find myself playing a lot of ‘old-school’ adventure games recently mostly because working on the Double Fine Adventure project has re-sparked my interest in the genre.

Recently I got realMyst for my iPad which is the real-time rendered version of the classic adventure game Myst. I contrast to the LucasArts adventures the game emphasis is on logical puzzles. Back in the day I didn’t like Myst at all. The puzzles all seemed artificial to me and I could never figure out what I am actually supposed to do.

The latter problem is still an issue, because you find yourself on the island without any clear goals. It’s up to the player to find out what to do. I generally like exploration as a game mechanic, but Myst is going a bit too far in my opinion.

Apart from that I really enjoyed playing the game though. Most of the puzzles are solvable with a bit of thinking and the progress is timed quite well. Whenever I felt like giving up a realization somehow appeared and I could progress.

My only complaint is the forced repetition in order to get both the blue and the red page from each ‘age’. I mean I can understand that I wouldn’t be able to carry a unrealistic amount of items, but why would I not be able to carry to book pages at the same time?

The iPad controls could use a bit tuning too, but apart from that a solid (logic) adventure game. I guess there is a reason why the Myst series is so successful… 🙂